Top junior recurve seed to Frenchman KOENIG in last end

“It’s a great feeling to finish first,” Thomas KOENIG confirmed as the scores were made official. “I’ve been shooting this kind of score for the last two weeks – so I’m happy to continue it here.”

When asked about having a world championships on French soil, he replied: “In my mind, this is almost the same as the Nimes Tournament. A similar level of participants, familiar faces and the same venue – so I’m approaching it the same.”

In an interview yesterday, Jean-Charles VALLADONT picked out KOENIG as the young archer to watch on the French team. The reigning world field champion told us KOENIG shot a perfect 300 in the national selections – and that his best was still to come.

“I’m happy that Jean-Charles would say that about me,” said the top seed coyly. “But I don’t know about that. Let’s see on the field!”

If the young French archer holds his form throughout the elimination stages of the competition in Nimes, some of that promise will give way to silverware sooner rather than later.

Russia’s Ariuna ZHARGALOVA led the recurve junior women’s ranking after qualification with 579. See full results from qualification.

The World Archery Indoor Championships is underway in Nimes, France until 2 March 2014. Follow live scores, full results and World Archery’s coverage on Facebook and Twitter.